POETRY & PLACE

We cannot understand where we are going unless we
reflect on where we have been. Indeed place is foundational to identity and
creativity. The knowledges each of us brings to the classroom has been shaped
in many ways by the places where we have lived, worked, created, suffered loss,
changed our minds, took risks, and evolved. In this course, we will use poetry
to explore our relationships to place, most specifically to that iconic and
shape-shifting place we do/do not/never did/never will again/sometimes call
“home.” How do we imagine “home”? How does “home” come alive through language?

 

Readings

In this course, we will be reading works by
Haunani-Kay Trask, Brandy Nālani McDougall, Craig Santos-Perez, Sage Takehiro,
Selina Tusitala Marsh, R. Zamora Linmark, Gizelle Gajelonia, Jamaica
Heolimeleikalani Osorio, Lyz Soto, D. Kūhiō Colleps, Wayne Westlake, Muriel
Rukeyser, William Carlos William, Anne Carson, and more. A course reader will
be available for purchase at the beginning of the semester.

 

Assignments

Some assignments include a walking poem, a postcard
series, and love letters to home. We will also learn and play with documentary
poetry and forms such as sonnets and villanelles.